Goldhagen: What I can never undertand is how the players can be such good shooters in practice (we occassionally practice with the team and have scrimmaged against them in practice) but suddenly fall apart in a game? No one misses a free throw in practice, and no one hits one in a game. There shouldn't be any excuse for missing from the line. The only reason I can find is a lack of confidence because their positions are so tenuous.
The discussion was interrupted momentarily by the arrival of Rodney Pearson, Winthrop House business tutor and erstwhile scrimmager against the Ol' Miss. women's hoop squad, currently ranked tenth in the nation. Pearson turned out to be a women's Cager fan as well.
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Pearson: They've got talent but they don't run hard enough. If you don't have size, you need speed. The coach can always bring in subs, so they ought to get out there and run hard for three minutes, then come out and rest again. They need to play more like the Celtics; you run like mad, tire out the opposition, then come back strong in the second half and win. Games like that build confidence, then you start to build a winning tradition.
Pearson's emphasis on running needs to be understood in light of the fact that he himself runs 15 miles a day and does 2:20 marathons. The cagers, he says, need not go to such extremes.
With half the season, over, the hoopsters come back after intercession with twelve games left to play; their first three at home, the next nine on the road. They'll have to win nine of those just to break even.
The one most consistent characteristic of the cagers this year has been their ability to come out onto the floor after half time a team transformed. It has happened games left to play; their first three at retake the floor and suddenly start hitting the basket, hauling in rebounds one after another, and flying like some foreign substance got caught in the halftime gatorade bottle. Maybe the same trend will hold for the cagers' season, and they'll come back after intercession like a new team--rested, confident, and able to win like they should.
Crimson center forward Joe Carrabino rode a couple of hot shooting performances to ECAC and Ivy League player of the week honors last week. His 79 per cent shooting made him the first Harvard player in years to qualify for the NCAA